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West Coast Avengers#6:
Review

Dec 2018

Kelly Thompson,
Daniele Di Nicuolo

Story Name:

(no title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:

West Coast Avengers #6 Review by Rob Johnson (January 4, 2019)

The cover is a play on that of #2 of the original West Coast Avengers mini-series. Kid Omega and America Chavez take the flying spots filled by Wonder Man and Iron Man. Clint Barton occupies his old Hawkeye position while Kate Bishop has to make do with Tigra. Gwenpool copies Mockingbird's stance and Fuse just fits in where he can. The silhouette in the middle originally represented new (minor) villain the Blank, but this time it's Noh-Varr/Marvel Boy.

Lady Bullseye 1st showed up as a regular villain in the Daredevil series from DD(1998)#111, usually working for the Hand or Kingpin. She had been inspired by being accidentally rescued as a young girl from the Yakuza by Bullseye. Her only interaction with the Hawkeye's as far as I know was her last previous app in the last issue of their 2017 series. There she was working for Madame Masque and that's why Kate Bishop recognised her shuriken last issue.

Noh-Varr is an enhanced Kree from an alternate reality. He came over to the main Marvel timeline in his Marvel Boy mini-series. He later had other identities Captain Marvel and Protector, but it was as Marvel Boy again that he met Kate and became her boyfriend in the 2013 Young Avengers series. Lately he's been involved with the Inhumans in their Royals series, discovering the Progenitors who created the Kree (who then created the Inhumans).

From Our Blog:

In yesteryear, when the Hulk was a savage man-brute, the world usually responded to his might with distrust, fists, and weapons.

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Madame Masque is celebrating with (at least some of) her gang trapping the West Coast Avengers in an abandoned funfair. (We confirmed Eel and Satana last issue but we now learn that MODOK (who was masquerading as BRODOK in the 1st story arc) is in the gang too.) She says that the aim of the exercise is *not* to kill them (which would bring revenge from other superheroes) but to break their spirits so they give up. It appears that the other villains are actually auditioning for places in her gang by the creativity of their methods. And apparently there are others including Lady Bullseye looking for the missing WCAer Hawkeye (Kate Bishop). The team minus Kate but plus Ramone Watts (sister of Fuse (Johnny Watts) and girlfriend of America Chavez) are suspended in wooden cages above a pool with sharks in.

Kate herself was rescued by her mother Eleanor Bishop. But Kate is suspicious because her mother died years ago, so she surreptitiously plants a tracker on her 'mom'. She detects someone following them through tunnels beneath the fair. She fires off an arrow and gets some shuriken in reply, 1 of which slices her shoulder. But a flash arrow blinds her foe and exposes her as Lady Bullseye. And then an explosive arrow knocks her out. Kate takes a quiver of arrows from the unconscious Bullseye, and also some earplugs she notices in her ears.

Eleanor leads her daughter up to the surface outside the funfair, but then says she has to return before the rest of the villain gang get suspicious. But Kate says she's going back in to rescue her teammates. Mom tries to dissuade her but Hawkeye is adamant. On the way in she notices the return of a headache she had inside (as did many of the other WCAers). She puts the earplugs in and the headache disappears.

Back inside Gwenpool and Kid Omega have been dumped in the pool. A shark approaches but Gwen Poole punches it in the nose while Quentin Quire tries to think of a more permanent solution. Then Satana opens the trapdoor under Ramone to add her to the mix. Brother Johnny normally needs to be touching something in order to be able to transform into its substance, but now he concentrates hard and turns to water so he can drain out of his cage and reform himself in the pool. There are now 4 of them in the pool with the sharks but Quire has worked out a plan. Warning Gwen to catch him when he passes out Kid Omega concentrates his (diminished) mental abilities and expels all the water and the sharks from the pool.

A tender moment between Gwen and Quentin is cut short by the arrival of more sharks - the 4-legged land sharks from #1. But Hawkeye (Clint Barton) has been busy constructing a slingshot out of strips of his costume, and taking bolts from the metal bars of his cage to use as projectiles. Now he fires 1 straight through the head of the 1st land shark. America, the only other person left in a cage, asks for some bolts she can throw. She may not have as good an aim but when she connects the sharks will certainly feel it.

We break off for a little interlude with Kate who gets soaked by a sudden flash flood down the tunnel she's in. (Well the water from the pool had to go somewhere. Luckily for her it doesn't contain any sharks.) But then the mystery figure from the cover shows up and kicks her in the head.

Back in the control room Satana is tired of watching the land sharks chase our folks around. We get confirmation that they belong to MODOK (and therefore they *were* part of BRODOK's army in #1). Then Lady Bullseye staggers in to complain that Kate Bishop beat her up. Madame Masque says that another male member of their gang will take care of *her*.

And Kate wakes up, gathers her weapons and then finds herself facing her ex-boyfriend Noh-Varr/Marvel Boy.